


Verisimilitude

by misura



Category: Hidden Legacy Series - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Characters React to Fandom, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I think it's hot," Grandma Frida said, folding her arms in a 'that's that' gesture.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verisimilitude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



> when I saw your letter, I just couldn't resist writing you a treat

"I think it's hot," Grandma Frida said, folding her arms in a 'that's that' gesture.

The kitchen smelled faintly of pizza, and Augustine Montgomery and Mad Rogan were sitting at the kitchen table glaring at each other.

Clearly, the smart thing to do would be to back away quietly. Nothing to see here, moving right along.

"Nevada." Caught. Rogan smiled at me. Given how often he seemed to be doing that, I couldn't help but feel it was entirely unfair my knees still went more than a little bit weak at the sight. Surely overexposure should have rendered me immune by now. "Your grandmother was just showing us some of her favorite pieces of fanart."

Right. Well, that explained why _Augustine_ wasn't looking happy, anyway. Mad Rogan was, or had been until very recently, the stuff of legends. Personally, I had never seen the appeal, but I knew at least two members of my family had subscribed to the DailyMad group on Herald.

Augustine Montgomery, on the other hand, was just the guy who represented the House that owned our debt and thus, technically, Baylor Investigations. Not so long ago, he'd given me a choice between taking an incredibly dangerous assignment, or having my whole family get kicked out of our home. I wouldn't say that I disliked him, but he wasn't exactly Mr Popular around here, either.

"What are you doing here?" True, Rogan had taken to dropping by unannounced, operating on the mistaken assumption that sooner or later, I would spontaneously change my mind about wanting to have sweaty, dirty, mind-blowingly great sex that would completely and permanently screw up my life.

Augustine was more the kind of person who'd call you and expect you to drop everything in order to show up at his office when he wanted to see you.

"I thought I just told you. Weren't you listening?" Rogan said.

_Not_ some sort of crisis that might result in the whole of Houston getting destroyed, then.

"Connor wished to discuss your contract." Augustine grimaced. " _Again._ He thought your presence might expedite things." Clearly, Augustine did not share this opinion. Fair enough, given that _I_ didn't share it, either, especially given that I had a fairly clear idea what 'Connor' wanted to change about our current contract.

I might not be Augustine's greatest fan - or any kind of fan, really, but I much preferred our debt being held by someone with no personal interest in our family over, well, someone who took entirely too much of a personal interest. To say nothing of the part where to most people, 'Mad' actually _was_ his first name.

"Suggesting you add a single word is hardly a discussion," Rogan said mildly.

The word had been 'not', and it had more or less put a stop to Augustine being able to force us to either do his bidding or lose everything we had. Granted, he'd only actually done so once, but I still slept a lot easier at night knowing there was no way anyone could force me to go after the next Adam Pierce. Some things were better left to people who had actually been trained to deal with them.

"If you boys want to get a room or something, I think there's a hotel not that far from here," Grandma Frida said. She sounded entirely too gleeful. Also, she'd just referred to two immensely powerful human beings as 'boys'. Or, well, one inhumanly powerful sociopath and one Prime.

Augustine frowned. "I hardly think - "

"It was a long time ago," Rogan said.

Silence. Even Grandma Frida looked a little stunned. 

"We've both changed since then," Rogan went on, as if he hadn't just dropped a conversational bombshell. "Moving in different circles, pursuing different goals." He looked at me. "I look for different qualities in my sexual partners now."

Be still my heart. I didn't really see how I could take the implication that I had very little in common with Augustine as anything other than a statement of the blindingly obvious.

"Still, if anyone's gone through the trouble of digging through our pasts, I'm inclined to return the favor," Augustine said.

Rogan grinned at him. "If it helps, they didn't quite draw mine to scale, either."

"You're not taking this very seriously."

Rogan shrugged. "Given that MAdam has been trending again all week, I'm not particularly fussed about some old piece of fanart featuring you and me, no. Anyone with Internet access can find out we roomed together at college for several years - the fic, as they say, practically writes itself."

"MAdam?" I didn't think I wanted to know.

"Mad and Adam." Grandma Frida sniffed. "Some people simply can't see two hot guys and _not_ slash them together. It used to be a rarepair, but these days, it's all anyone seems able to talk about."

"I suppose I did chase him around town for several days," Rogan said. He sounded amused.

"You people actually _read_ what's on Herald?" I was suddenly very, very glad the only fangroup I'd ever joined was for Leif Magnusson. At least _he_ would never be sitting at our kitchen table.

"Some of us, yes," Augustine said. "Others have more important things to do with their time."

"It's a way of keeping tabs on people without getting personally involved," Rogan said. "If I send someone to follow another Prime around, they might take that the wrong way and make a fuss. On the other hand, if I just tell a couple of my employees to keep an eye on what shows up on Herald, I still get information, but nobody has any chance to get offended. Or even notice I've acquired the information at all."

Augustine suddenly looked thoughtful. Clearly, _he'd_ never considered Herald as a means of spying on people. Fair enough; I suspected it required a special kind of paranoia to develop that particular point of view.

"You're sure it's not about the ego boost?" I asked. "All these people thinking you're God's gift to women." Adam Pierce probably spent a _lot_ of time on Herald, in between figuring out how to look cool for his next photo op and burning things for fun.

Rogan grinned. "It can't be about both?"

"Like your ego _needs_ boosting," Augustine said.

"Oh, I admit 95% of the contents is harmless and, to some degree, useless. You may want to take that into account when you're setting up your own team. The trick is filtering out the remaining 5%. You never know when a certain tidbit of genuine information will be useful."

"I believe I have some idea of how information gathering works," Augustine said dryly. "You could say it's a bit of a House specialty."

"And yet you passed up on this treasure trove of fascinating stories and pictures."

"Lot of porn, too," Grandma Frida said. "And some of it's pretty damn good."

"You're not that popular, so you probably don't need to worry about your employers getting the wrong idea about your capabilities," Rogan told Augustine.

"As you need to worry about yours?"

"In my case, most of the stories tend to be amazingly accurate about my skills and stamina." Rogan didn't even have the decency to sound smug. Nope, that sure was an ego that didn't need any boosting. "The art, somewhat less so, on occasion, but given that I didn't pose for any of it, I suppose I have little right to complain."

Augustine sighed. "Fine. You've made your point."

"I'd be happy to offer hard evidence to any more cynical parties present," Rogan said, looking at me.

"That's okay," I said. "I believe you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work."

"Before you leave, can I get a Selfie?" Grandma Frida asked, as I hurried out the door to the relative safety of the Hut of Evil.


End file.
